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Within five minutes of the closing of the New Hampshire Republican primary polls, two things became clear: 1) Mitt Romney would win the primary; 2) Ron Paul would win the young vote (18 to 29).

The question for both then became: “By how much?”

The answer: “A lot.”

Mitt Romney took 39.4 percent of the vote – clearing the 38 percent market that pundits had set for him.

Paul took a whopping 47 percent of the youth vote – only one percent lower than his 48 percent posting among young Iowa caucus goers.

I had predicted that Paul would win the youth vote, but I imagined it would be closer to 40 percent, given the heightened profile of Huntsman in New Hampshire. Huntsman did take a chunk of the young vote – 14 percent – but the youth numbers of Santorum (8 percent) and Gingrich (3 percent) came in so low, that Paul could still grab his nearly 50 percent.

Other stats:

25 percent of the youth vote went to Mitt Romney.

15 percent of eligible young voter participated in the primary. ** (CIRCLE)